1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to data communication links. More particularly, the present invention relates to transmitter optimization for data communication links.
2. Description of the Background Art
High-speed serial interfaces may be used to communicate data between devices in a system. Such serial interfaces may provide a high data bandwidth across backplanes or between chip devices.
However, problems and issues are faced due to the high-speed signaling that may be used by these serial interfaces. One problem relates to frequency-dependent transmission signal losses, which may be caused by skin effect and dielectric loss. This transmission signal loss may cause greater attenuation of the high-frequency component of these signals, making it problematic for the receiver to accurately interpret the data signal. This may lead to a higher bit error rate (BER).
The frequency dependent loss may become severe and various equalizations may need to be invoked to compensate the high-frequency signal loss. Commonly used equalization techniques may include linear equalization and non-linear adaptive equalization. Examples of linear equalization include finite impulse response (FIR) filtering and feed forward equalization (FFE). An example of nonlinear adaptive equalization is decision feedback equalization (DFE).